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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
WHAT FOBs THINK OF AMERICAN-BORN ASIANS
y FOBs we mean anyone who has ever been called an FOB. -- "fresh-off-the-boat", anyone not born here. In other words, half the AA population. Even the 2 million AA who immigrated as kids and speak English like -- or in some cases, better than -- native-born Americans rarely escape the sting of being dismissed by American-Born Asians (ABAs) based on real or imagined differences.
The stereotype of the hopeless FOB who just doesn't get American culture is all too familiar. But intra-Asian prejudice is a two-way street.
No less insulting are the images held by FOBs. ABAs are the descendants of the lowliest of peasants forced to flee their homelands to become indentured servants, sniff some FOBs. Born and bred to accept second-class status in a white society, sneer others. Slackers who don't know the meaning of ambition and sacrifice -- and who lack the guts to do anything about it in any case.
FOBs run the socio-economic gamut. A significant minority (perhaps a tenth) are highly successful trans-Pacific business families seeking a safe haven for their fortunes. The vast majority are engineers, scientists, physicians and academics braving the uncertainties of new lives for a chance to work hard for more money and better opportunities. A few are refugees and illegals risking their lives to escape hopeless, grinding poverty.
It's safe to say few FOBs feel in any respect disadvantaged relative to American-born Asians. In fact, given a dozen years most do as well or better than ABAs financially, if not socially. They can be excused, then, for harboring some less-than-flattering assessments of ABAs. By the same token, in their struggle to acculturate, FOBs often come to appreciate the trails blazed by the ABS, or at least, by their ancestors.
Assuming you're FOB or straddling the FOB-ABA fence, what's your image of ABAs? Let's hear the good as well as the bad.
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:03:25 PM)
To: AC, AA
Dell was really not much different than a mom-and-pop shop in its early beginnings. The main difference was that Dell contracted with support companies, which allowed it to play in the space of Compaq, HP, and IBM at the corporate level.
In the mid-80’s, we saw a few systems: 286/386 with MSDOS/Windows286/Windows386. the Mac and Mac II, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, etc. Commodore and Atari didn’t fit in the corporate arena, and the Amiga basically became a LightWave platform and ST became a MIDI platform. Apple at that time was adamant about being a closed system, so there was no competition to drive hardware costs down for is Mac OS. Also, AppleTalk was not a very scaleable communication protocol. So it saw a vertical market.
The PC was much more open. Novell and Banyan took advantage of this and became the backoffice for file and print services. Then in the mid-90’s, NT took off and started replacing Novell and Banyan. You hardly see any Novell anymore except in the state-level government and Banyan Vines in the military.
IBM is making a serious comeback in the past 3 years with their mainframes. They’ve adopted Linux as their core OS, not AIX anymore. They’ve rolled out new zSeries mainframes, starting with the z800 running the zOS for Linux. I’m doing this from my memory of my last visit to their site: the price starts at about $400k which includes a 3-year support contact. According to their site, this machine can be sliced into over 100 virtual Linux machines. If you’re running 100 3U boxes (e.g. Proliant DL380) in datacenters, you’re looking at 6 racks at about $2000 per month per rack. With the z800, you’re saving $10k/month (need only one rack space) in datacenter rack space cost. Even if you’re not in a DC, you’re looking a significant reductions of electricity and human resources to manage the system. They’re pushing this as “server consolidation.” I read that in 2001, 65% of IBM’s mainframe sales was sold to run Linux. I think that’s really smart of them – to use a contemporary OS to leverage their main strength, mainframes, which everyone else though was a dying dinosaur.
Compaq makes their own parts mostly for servers and high-end workstation. Most of their lower end stuff are also from third parties.
Repost
Wednesday, April 10, 2002 at 06:49:55 (PDT)
AC Dropout and AA and CTFC!
I'm not sure what exactly you are arguing about at this point since I've only skimmed your past posts.
However, what happened in the past is not so important anymore. A lot of companies made mistakes and failed to follow through on their own intellectual property. I don't know if this would happen so easily today. It is hard to make a lot of money in the PC market today. Most of the big companies you talk about don't make the bulk of their profits in PCs. They diversify, hoping to find an industry where they can enjoy fat margins for a long period of time. One good example of this is the server and mainframe markets. This market is also one which Asian companies cannot easily take advantage of. While there might be some Asian OEMs providing parts for servers and mainframes, the big profits are being made by the big companies that produce the finished product.
The PC industry might have made Asia a lot of money in the past. However, let's take a look at Taiwan. There are so many chip fabrication facilities in Taiwan. Many of the chemicals used in these facilities are extremely harmful to humans. There are chemicals that dissolve bones and mess up your nervous system. There are others that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (cause birth defects). My question is, have the proper procedures been followed in terms of chemical waste disposal in Taiwan? How bad is this type of pollution in Taiwan? The same type of thing must be happening elsewhere in Asia. It has happened in the US. It is difficult to stop since you don't know the hazard posed by many chemicals until people start developing symptoms.
KM, 24
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 at 23:03:05 (PDT)
AA with (way) too much time,
Instead of looking for convulted methods with companies under SEC to debase my stance of asain OEM/ODM company being one of the factors driving cost down of parts for PC, which led to MS OS dominance. Because you are now just discussing nuiances and view points that are extremely subjective.
Sure you can say Compaq is innovative. While other people will think moving a support braket 1/4 inch and redesigning the heads of the plugs, was less innovative than the oversize toaster to heat bagels.
If you wanted to introduce other market forces and downplay the cost of IBM PC as a prevelent factor, you should have just introduced the illegal Apple II clones that were also in the market. Apple never licensed out their PC. Yet there were cheaper clones in the market and after market parts. Cheaper prices were not necessarily the only reason PC clone were able to dominate, because Apple had them too.
You see how elegant that response would have been in tearing down the my original argument. Instead of acting like a stock broker trying to plug stocks in IBM, Compaq, Dell, Intel, AMD, Cyrix, and Gateway.
AC Dropout
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 at 09:12:19 (PDT)
AC Dropout,
OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer not Orig. Engineer Manu.
Concerning OEM ODM firms, yes, to a point, they do not need to steal technology since they are the contractors. However, they are stealing the technology IF they use the knowledge transfer of licensed goods and ideas to profit in the way the agreement forbids them.
No doubt clone PC’s from mom & pop shops flourished in the 80’s. No argument there. It was very profitable (above normal profit margin) back then. However, the subject was how the price drop of PC/PC clones started, which in your view led to MS dominance (I disagree). The most significant price cut came as a result of Compaq’s initiation of price wars in the early 90’s – FACT, check out the PC industry history and you will see how ALL other PC companies (including mom/pop shops) had to scramble to reduce costs or be out of the market. Because of this, the PC market is now considered cutthroat competitive market.
By the way, Compaq is one of the very few companies that design their own components. They may use the chips of well-established firms, but design and manufacturing are under control of Compaq. They had the insight into design and overwhelming influence over their manufacturing contractors that made the initiation of price cuts possible. It is not the same as Dell or Gateway that use over the counter components purchased from OEM/ODM firms. AFTER Compaq’s price reductions, the OEM/ODM firms that supplied Dell, Gateway, and others had to reduce their costs in order to battle out with more vertically integrated Compaq.
Concerning IBM, I didn’t say anything about how an original ought to or must dominate the market. I just stated as a fact, IBM failed to continue to dominate the market.
As usual, you threw in some trivial facts that created contentions where there weren’t any, or do nothing to disprove my points. But that’s your style isn’t it? I was laughing when I was reading your post because you have no idea how old I am, my brand loyalty (if any), and my experiences in this field. Your BS is getting deeper and deeper, AC.
AA with (way) too much time
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 at 06:38:29 (PDT)
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